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The Participatory Culture of Interpersonal Music Sharing
Overview As true with any other form of culture, music defines those who listen to it. But do you remember how you came across your favorite song? Perhaps it was a product of a suggestion based on your prior listening habits? Meaning it was brought to your attention by an algorithm that predicted your tastes correctly. Or it may have been showed to you by a friend? Meaning your friend saw it as media worthy of spreading. In this post, I aim to explain how subjectively new music comes into the lives of its listeners or discoverers. Spreading Music Interpersonally Beginning with the latter of the two, whereas Jenkins would describe a song as a piece of ‘spreadable media’ in "If It Doesn't Spread , Its Dead (Part 6)”. ''In this passage, Jenkins(the author) lists a few traits well-spread media tends to have in common, the first of which being the capacity for a piece of media to “articulate the experiences and values that identify oneself as belong to a particular community”. In 2014, the song “Glory”, by the rapper Common and recording artist, John Legend was released as the theme song for the movie ''“Selma”, a movie based on the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. The song details trials faced by the African-American community culminating with the current racial climate where blacks are held equal to whites in society. The song refers to the listeners as ‘we’ and the glory of success in becoming equal as ‘ours’. This is obviously aimed at a particular group of listeners, namely the black community in addition to other equal rights advocates and bolsters comradery in calling for strength and a united community in fighting the “sins against our skin”(alluding to the conflict in Ferguson which was at large at the time of the song’s production). Jenkins also mentions a particular media’s capacity to “gather information and explain difficult to understand events or circumstances” as another trait which makes media more likely to be shared, which the song does possess in explaining the trials of the black community to outgroups, in addition to shining light on the mentality to Civil Rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks in Common’s verses. The third trait Jenkins lists is the media’s ability to “establish the boundaries of an ‘in-group’”, which is done blatantly done through the use of the words “us” and “our” in reference to the racial community. For Example Let’s say you’re a member of another community, for example, the ever increasing population of bullied youths, a song such as “No Love” by Eminem may speak to you on these levels because it bolsters comradery around those in such a state by showing how bullied kids are not alone, and that even high-profile artists such as Lil Wayne and Eminem (who are exemplars of toughness) have been in those same shoes. It displays the difficult to understand circumstances plaguing these individuals who often lack a voice for themselves, and establishes an in-group of the oppressed against their oppressors in the “fuck what they ''say” lines reminding listeners that they are not the insults they receive from the out-group. Sources * Jenkins, Henry. "If It Doesn’t Spread, It’s Dead (Part Six): Spreadable Content." ''Confessions of an AcaFan. 23 Feb. 2009. Web. 13 Oct. 2015. * Jenkins, Henry. "Why Participatory Culture Is Not Web 2.0." Confessions of an AcaFan''. 4 May 2010. Web. 13 Oct. 2015. '' * Beer, David. "Chapter 4. Algorithms: Shaping Tastes and Manipulating the Circulations of Popular Culture pages 63–100" Popular Culture and New Media the Politics of Circulation''. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 63-100'' Category:Music and Participatory Culture Category:Additions Encouraged